Sadly, X-COM: EU is a bit of bummer. Even without comparing it to the all-time great UFO Defense which preceded it. There is no atmosphere to speak of, everything in the game's environment is meant to look like some sort of bland sci-fi action bit. The supporting cast are tropes without any personality, and the aliens' designs might well be straight ripped from some after school cartoon adventure show. The music is entirely forgettable as well. The base building is pretty linear at first, though it does sort of branch in terms of where your precious few resources will be focused. This is a balancing act that I never felt I could totally exploit, although there are probably EU experts who can break the system. Promotions are pretty topical, there is some choice in upgrading but in short, having the soldier alive for more missions will simply make them more powerful regardless of which specific perks you choose, nor will the choices really alter how you play them. The equipment upgrading, for all its confusing interfacing and your ever-changing supply of engineers, is quite linear as well, with very few people who are going to opt for improving gear like medkits or scopes rather than going straight for the weapons. Missions are laughably identical. Generic military dispatch guy will start with a one liner that inserts whatever country of 3 you decided to intervene in, based on a choice of mission rewards and national panic limits. But the combat itself always involves the same approach; creep along until you stumble across enemies and then swing for the fences. There is no incentive to really dive in most cases; practically all missions do not involve a ratings risk for civilian casualties, nor give you any greater reward for completing it in 2 turns or cheesing the whoe thing over 50. In these encounters expect to fight hundreds of copies of 3 of the same enemy types, while a few others get mixed in for some bland flavoring later on. All in all, pretty lame.